‘Academic psychiatry is in trouble, becoming the narrowest of biological research approaches of decreasing relevance to clinical practice and global health. What is required is a balancing of the psychiatric academy to include greater support for researchers conducting social, clinical and community studies within a broad, more humanistic biosocial framework.’

In their response, SRN’s Simon Bradstreet and John McCormack welcome the suggestion that academic psychiatry look beyond biological confines to new and wider domains of human experience and distress. They also suggest that during the period of reflection prompted by this piece that we don’t lose sight of what our future psychiatrists are being taught in the very same academies.